One of the state’s top cops has said that the days of young people “going through a gauntlet of police lined with drug dogs” at music festivals are over as the focus shifts to train stations, parks and more secluded locations to target those selling drugs to festivalgoers.
Paul Dunstan, the acting assistant commissioner and vibrancy representative for the NSW Police at the State of Live Music inquiry, told Monday’s hearing that police have changed their enforcement strategy at music festivals from targeting the possession of drugs to the supply.
“We’ve got a slight change in strategy at the music festivals in the enforcement of drug possession, in particular. We’ve now pivoted to a more drug-supply focus. The days of young people attending festivals, going through a gauntlet of police lined with drug dogs, are behind us,” Dunstan said.
“We still have drug dogs, and we don’t apologise for having drug dogs around the festivals, but we focus on the supply of drugs, not the possession. So, you’ll see us more often around train stations, in parks or areas en route to the festival, trying to identify and locate those who are responsible for the supply of prohibited drugs.”
It follows a landmark 3000-member class action in the NSW Supreme Court in September last year, which challenged the lawfulness of police strip-searches at music festivals and was set to cost the state millions.
The suit’s main plaintiff, Raya Meredith, was awarded $93,000 in damages plus interest after she was forced to pull down her top, expose her breasts, take off her shorts and underwear, remove a tampon, and bend over during a drug test when she attended Splendour in the Grass music festival in July 2018 as a 27-year-old. No drugs were found on her.
Dunstan said the new strategy would be led with “an intelligence-based approach” to charge people supplying both inside and outside festivals.
“[It’s] still an offence to possess a prohibited drug, but depending on the type of drug, whether [festivalgoers] are entitled to a caution, a diversion, or a failed attendance notice, or a charge, depends on the type and quantity of the drug,” Dunstan said.
The number of individuals charged with drug offences resulting from a strip-search following a drug dog indication between 2024 and 2025 has fallen, according to data provided to parliament by NSW Police.
In 2025, 65 people were charged with possession, while in 2025, 87 were. For supply, 19 people were charged in 2024, while 26 charges were laid in 2025.
There was a total of 213 strip-searches resulting from a drug dog indication in 2025, and 132 people were found with an illicit substance. In 2024, there were 355 searches, and 217 people were found with an illicit substance.
Dunstan confirmed that policing operations would not be reduced when asked by Greens MP Cate Faehrmann, but instead the bulk of it would be around the festival, rather than at the gate.
“The supply is clearly not happening at the front gates of the venues, and our strategy is targeting the sort of people meeting in those quieter, more secluded locations, not at the front doorstep of the venue,” Dunstan said.
The use of drug dogs at music festivals has long been the subject of controversy. In 2019, an inquest in NSW was held into the overdose deaths of six young revellers at music festivals and heard that 19-year-old Alex Ross-King died from a drug overdose after opting to “double dump” two MDMA capsules to avoid being caught by police at a music festival.
Dunstan conceded that the police’s pivot towards targeting supply and staying away from the front gate was to make young revellers feel safer.
“We want to make it as safe for the young people or the people that attend these venues, and I think there was a suggestion, or a thought, that coming through a gauntlet, a line of police might make young people potentially feel unsafe, and so we’ve sort of spread our area to try and pick up those in the backstreets … or the isolated areas where the supply potentially is taking place,” he said.
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Kayla Olaya is a culture reporter at The Sydney Morning Herald.Connect via email.
